By Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

FORT DODGE – City High senior Amelia Morrow had a season that mirrored the year for her team.

Morrow opened the season strong with a win an individual title at the Iowa Mennonite Invite, went through some midseason struggles as a result of an illness that sidelined her and finished with a career-best 23rd place finish at the Class 4A state meet on Saturday at Lakeside Golf Course in Fort Dodge.

“She started her season at IMS winning the meet and there was a point where she missed almost a month due to sickness,” City High co-head coach Lynn Ahlers said. “She came back with incredible focus and incredible fire.”

City High followed a similar winding path as its senior captain Morrow.

Coming off a third-place state finish a year ago City High opened the season ranked in the top five.

The Little Hawks started strong, battled through mid-season struggles and finished with an 11th place finish on Saturday in its state-record 30th consecutive appearance at the state meet.

“We talked a lot about things but more importantly the girls took it upon themselves,” co-head coach Ryan Ahlers said. “The girls did a really nice job of executing plans but more or less just understanding the season isn’t over at the MVC super meet or divisional we still had work to do and they did that work.”

Led by the 23rd place finish by Morrow, City High finished with 222 points, two points behind Pleasant Valley and a spot in the top 10.

City High had three runners in the top 40 as junior Aly Hecker was 39th in 19:47.6 and sophomore Esti Brady was 40th in 19:48.2.

Seniors Kinsee Brands (58th) and Bridget Brown (62nd) rounded out the Little Hawk top five.

“It didn’t click for a while this season but we kept trying a bunch of different strategies,” Brands said. “We talked about it for a week leading up to districts and we knew we had to get it together and go and we found it.”

The performance by Morrow on Saturday capped a strong ending to her career.

In her first meet back after being sidelined by an illness, Morrow was 10th at the state qualifying meet.

She followed that up with the best state finish of her career in a time of 19:27.6.

In her only other state meet appearance Morrow placed 85th in 20:39.2 as a sophomore in 2015.

“I think she just took on a leadership role on the varsity team,” Ryan Ahlers said of Morrow. “She had a PR and she has taken her running to a new level.”

Brady improved her state meet time by 10 seconds from last season while finishing 40th, seven spots higher than last season.

State Cross Country Meet

At Lakeside Golf Course in Fort Dodge

Class 4A Girls

Team scores – 1. Johnston 74; 2. Dubuque Senior 118; 3. Waukee 154; 4. Dubuque Hempstead 168; 5. West High 181; 6. Urbandale 191; 7. Linn-Mar 198; 8. Des Moines Roosevelt 203; 9. Cedar Falls 207; 10. Pleasant Valley 220; 11. City High 222; 12. West Des Moines Dowling 228; 13. Ankeny Centennial 242; 14. Ottumwa 255; 15. Southeast Polk.

Individual Medalists – 1. Paige Horner (Johnston) 18:04.3; 2. Bailey Nock (West High) 18:19.9; 3. Jessica McKee (Johnston) 18:31.3; 4. Brooke McKee (Johnston) 18:44.8; 5. Kylie Latham (Ottumwa) 18:48.5; 6. Helen Gould (West Des Moines Valley) 18:50.3; 7. Laurdyn Meyer (Cedar Rapids Prairie) 18:50.9; 8. Reagan Gorman (Cedar Rapids Washington) 18:51.7; 9. Peyton Kelderman (Waukee) 18:52.6; 10. Lilly Geelan (Linn-Mar) 18:53.5; 11. Mia Rampton (Dubuque Senior) 18:57.5; 12. Sydney Schaffer (Waukee) 19:06.2; 13. Trinity Borland (Bettendorf) 19:09.2; 14. Mackenzie Michael (Cedar Falls) 19:09.4; 15. Hannah Brown (Dubuque Hempstead) 19:10.6.

City High – 23. Amelia Morrow 19:27.6; 39. Aly Hecker 19:47.6; 40. Esti Brady 19:48.2; 58. Kinsee Brands 20:05.6; 62. Bridget Brown 20:07.2; 77. Anna Lindower 20:17.7; 92. Annalise Rummelhart 20:48.4.